Wild Rice: Akamai

Hello everybody and welcome to Sake Revolution. I have a slightly different EM faus on my Bels today. this is America's very first sake podcast. And I am your host, John Puma. You may know me from the Sake Notes. You may also know me as the guy who started the internet sake discord on this show. I'm the guy who's not the Sake Samurai, that's the other guy.

And I'm your host, Timothy Sullivan. I'm a Sake Samurai. I'm a sake educator, as well as the founder of the Urban Sake website. And every week John and I will be here tasting and chatting about all things sake, doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand.

Hello, Tim. Welcome back.

John. It's a new year. New Year new you,

new, uh, new Year's same me so Uh, we'll see how it progresses. but you know, we're only a couple of days in, uh, into this new year. But, before we proceed any further, there is some business that we need to attend to.

Yes.

At the end of our previous episode, we promised our intrepid listeners that we were going to have our, our Sake revolution resolutions for 2023 in our hip pocket today when we started this episode. So you've had a week to think about it. Tim, what are, what is your resolution for 2023?

well, my sake resolution is simple, straightforward, and achievable.

Okay. These are all pluses. I like this.

Yes. I have not been to Japan since 2019, so my goal is to get my butt over to Nihon and enjoy some time in Japan before the end of 2023. Come hell or high water. What do you, what do you think of that?

I think, uh, I think it's very doable. Uh, having done it, having done it already, I'm gonna tell you, is not that hard. and now it isn't. It's gone. It went from impossible to remarkably easy like that. So,

Don't, don't you wish you, you had that as your resolution last year

I I, I can't, man. I mean, if I had it last year, it would've been, it would've been great. It would've been prophetic even. last year I wasn't, I didn't want jinx it so

Good.

I kept my mouth. Yeah. I kept my mouth shut. Have you, have you booked yet?

Nope. I haven't booked yet,

Okay. All right. All right. Well, when you go, I'm, I'm really excited. We'll do another live from Japan episode with the roles reversed.

that will be a freaky Friday episode. I'm gonna look forward to

Fantastic.

what about you?

Oh, me ha. Uh, yes. I. Talk on the show a lot. when we taste our sake and we, we sometimes we dabble in, how would you pair this? And I am often at a loss. I do not think about pairing when I'm drinking sake. Generally speaking, I focus really on the sake. I never think about how the food's gonna really work with it too much. So my goal for 2023 is to, uh, is to focus on pairings and to make sure that I. foods with my sake, you know, maybe take notes, you know, that didn't go great last year.

That's a great resolution and you know, I think it really just ties into paying attention when you eat. Pair sake with food, what works, what doesn't work, what really clicks with you, and just being a little present when you're pairing food in sake, that makes a huge difference. And, and, uh, I think it's gonna be fun in a year from now to check in and see what you've discovered in relation to food and sake pairing

All right. I like the way you put that. Uh, I to pay attention when I eat. That'll be a new thing. I'll try. I pay attention when I eat. Uh, yes. No, I'm, I'm really excited about that and, uh, and about trying to, you know, trying to just be better about that. I think it's a blind spot for me. I think it's something I wanna address.

Awesome. Okay,

not as, not as easy as, Going

to Japan,

or anything like that, but But I think it'll be, I think we're going to have a lot of fun, uh, on both of our, respective resolutions.

So well now that that is all buttoned up and we are ready to face 2023, head on, let's dive into our first full episode of the New Year. We're going to be adding another episode to our Wild Rice series. So this is a series that we've done over the, I can say it now over the years. Of sake revolution.

it's, I feel like it's been a while since we've done a wild Rice

Yeah. Longtime listeners will know that we have a series called Wild Rice where we taste sakes that come from a given rice strain, and we explore the background of that rice and we taste a sake from that that's made from that, and we're going to get back into that today. But something a little bit unique. This may be borderline extreme

Wait a second, Okay. So, uh, borderline, extreme wild rice. So this is gonna be some funky rice, huh?

Yes. The type of rice we're gonna be talking about today is known in Japanese by a few different names. The first one is Akamai

Okay.

Aka means "red" and "mai" means rice. So this is red rice. Have you ever heard of that before? Or you know about red rice?

I have heard of red rice, and I have seen, uh, sakes that utilize red rice. I don't think I've ever had a sake that uses red rice though.

Yeah. So. Red rice is literally a wild rice. So we could, we could say the whole series was named after this type of rice

that's a, I don't know if that's brilliant or a cop out, but I like it.

Yes. So wild rice is often called. Kodaimai or ancient rice. So this is rice that has not been cross-bred with other varieties of rice. So many types of premium sake. Rice are cultivated and cross-bred and have a parent and a grandparent and you know, they, they selectively breed rice for different characteristics that are important. But this type of Akamai or Kodaimai is really ancient strains of wild rice.

Mm-hmm.

Have you had that before? Like the type of

It's actually one of my favorite things to ha It's mixing some wild rice in with, peel off or something like that is delicious.

Yeah, well, we, we looked into a little bit of what makes these wild rice or red rice, what makes it special, and it turns out that the Akamai has tannins in it.

Tannins

Tannins,

in, in, in, in sake rice.

Well, this isn't, this isn't sake rice per se. This is not usually used for making sake, but the presence of tannins in wild rice allows brewers who choose to work with these types of grains to get an outcome that looks like a rose. It's really interesting. when the tannins are exposed to light over time, they give off this natural pinky red color, and it allows brewers to create. These sakes that have a very, very distinct hue to them.

Hmm. All right. This is a, this'll be educational.

Yeah, so this is not the type of rice that's going to have a shin, paku, or a starchy core. This is not considered Shuzokotekimai, which is the fancy word for premium sake rice. This is literally wild rice that if you look at it as a whole grain, it looks blackish or sometimes almost purple-ish in color. And it's really unique and not something you're gonna see every brewer using

Hmm. So is this a, a rice that you would normally, uh, you know, this specific rice, is this a rice that you would normally eat?

it is a rice that is grown kind of like a heritage grain. You know, like it's a. It's an ancient grain and it's used in all kinds of things. I think a lot of health food applications use these wild grains in Japan, so you can eat it. As I mentioned before, it's not something that's usually used for sake, except a few exceptions.

All right. I, I definitely am starting to see where that extreme might be peeking its head in on this episode.

Yes. And I think the main characteristic you're going to notice from sakes that use Akamai or Red rice is the color like that's gonna jump out at you. First and

gonna, it's a dead giveaway.

it is a dead giveaway.

yeah.

Now we're gonna focus in on a particular brewery and a particular sake. Today, this brewery has such an interesting story. I really wanted to share with you, John, some of the research I did. The brewery we're looking at today is called Mukai Shuzo.

Mukai Shuzo. All right. uh, and where are they located?

They're in Kyoto Prefecture, and when people hear Kyoto, they often think of the city of Kyoto. But they are .They are in a seaside town called Ine. Ine, and it is a small town on the Bay of Ine, which right next to the Sea of Japan. So this is in Northern Kyoto Prefecture. and it's pretty much right on the water, right on the ocean. The town is like a cultural heritage site because they have boat houses that line the coastline.

Huh. That's great.

Yeah. And they have a floating dock outside of their brewery and in the summer they take guests out to the dock and you sit on these wooden benches and it's like rocking a little bit and they serve you the sake and you do your tasting out on this floating dock on the water. It's really beautiful and interesting.

Hmm. All right. That sounds pretty cool.

Uh, the, the story gets even more interesting though because the Toji is a woman named Kuniko Mukai, and this brewery was founded in 1754.

1754

1754.

that that tracks.

Yeah. And. She was the daughter of the president and thought for most of her time growing up that she was going to be the next generation president because she did not have a brother. So the the father said to her, I'm only gonna pay for your college if you go to agricultural sake school. And that's a legit university that a lot of sake brewers next generations go to.

Hmm

at her school thought that, you know, shochu was overtaking sake as far as what people were drinking, and her professors taught her that they need something eye-catching, something that people will notice so that sake can make an impression again. And so she always carried th this idea of red rice sake in the back of her head and get this, she was 23 years. When this is 1998, she was appointed Toji by her father, one of the first female Tojis in Japan.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

That's great. It's another one of those stories. The younger person comes in, gets, goes to school, gets new ideas, they, they show up and try to change the world. And it's pretty cool

But. This is where conflict comes into the story. Yeah. She joined the brewery as the TOI at age 23 and as woman, and the brewers that were working there were all 60, 70 years old. And they were not happy with, they knew her her whole life, like she grew up in the brewery. She knew all these men who were working in the brewery, but to suddenly have her with no experience, be their boss, created a lot of conflict.

Yeah, but he was like two. You know, he is a

Not at the, I mean, it was a, it was a few years after, uh, she was expecting it, but the son was born and now he's the President. And she is the Toji. So it's a brother sister team that run Mukai. Shuzo.

So she's the still the to and he got to be, he got to, to rise up and become the, the Kuramoto.

Yeah. I think when she was like, I think when she was like 12 or something like that, her younger brother, brother was born and, uh, they weren't sure what was gonna happen, but she ended up falling in love with being a toji and doing the brewing. And the brother came back after her father retired and her brother took over, like the administrative type of work. And she, because she had the training at the agriculture school to brew sake, she kept going with being the toge.

Oh, that's an interesting tale. I like, I like when there's a good story with these, uh, with these breweries and, and, and some fun things that we get Nice.

Yeah, I saw a few interviews with her. She is very enthusiastic about sake. She has a super bright personality and. She is not going to settle for normal run of the mill sake, although they make really good classic sake too. They're known in Japan. This sake we're gonna taste is their signature sake, the one made with the red rice.

Mm. All right.

All right. Do you wanna introduce us to the sake will be tasting today.

That sounds good to me. So, this, Ine Munkai Junmai Genshu now you may immediately think Genshu, it's gonna be a lot of alcohol, but remember, Genshu just means it's not water diluted. It, but that does not necessarily mean. A lot of alcohol, it just means no water added. And in this case, the alcohol percentage is only 14%. That's very interesting. And so much like the rice Pilaf you mentioned earlier. Uh, this one is of course using more than one rice.

Yes, this is a crossover episode with

Yeah. ,I think it might be. Yes. Uh, so, um, without further ado, let's put some, uh, AKA in our glass.

Absolutely. So let's go ahead and pour this Ine mankai sake.

Oh dear. It is quite red,

Have you ever seen a sake this color before?

Uh, nope.

Yeah. This

I, I've seen other red or pink sakes before, but none of them have this exact hue. and also most of the other ones I've had that had that color, it came from the yeast.

Yes. That's a great point, John. Yeah, there there's different ways to make red or rose colored sake using the. Ancient strains of wild rice that have the tannins in them as one. But there's some strains of yeast that can give off, uh, certain components that are going to give that blush of pink to the sake as well.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Those, those always seemed a little bit lighter to me. This has a more intense coloration in my

Definitely it's a big color.

All right, well now let's give it a smell. You ready for.

Mm-hmm.

This is not, this is not John's style of sake.

Extreme

It's extreme. It, it's okay. I'm gonna be honest with you. This smells like some things that I know you don't like

Ah, you know me so

I get a little bit of a cheesy note on the aroma. It smells. There's some cheese, aroma,

Mm-hmm.

and

the, the, the cheese, the cheese alarm is going off in, in John's mind.

Yes, and there's also a briny aroma as well that smells like olives to me, which I know you also do not like.

We're doing great. Uh, two for two but you know, not every sake needs to be for me, the sake for everybody.

Yes. But there are some, you know, there's some, uh, of that creamy, uh, cheesy aroma, but there's also some fruitiness, maybe a little bit of cherry or something like that in the background.

Yeah, there's something. There is something

Hmm. Something tart

Yes. So something tart. There's something cherry. I just have to work through the cheese to get there.

with a machete. You have to fight your way.

Yes.

All right. Well, it This is a very complex aroma. Very funky.

Oh, quite

Yes. All right. This may not be in your wheelhouse, Puma, but we're gonna soldier on.

We are.

Yes. Alright. Let's give it a taste. Hmm. Oh, wow. The flavor is not cheesy at all. The flavor is, it tastes, it tastes like cherry soda to me.

the cherry really comes through. a lot more on the taste than it does on the nose.

Yeah.

Hmm.

It's like a cherry seltzer that's gone flat. That's what it tastes

Yeah. Almost like a, a, almost like a, a cocktail that's using uh, like a flat cherry this is really a lot lighter in flavor than I was expecting. I was, I, with that aroma, I was expecting, um, just a heavyweight, you know, left hook coming at me,

Mm-hmm.

This is, Uh, much lighter light is the right word, I think.

Yeah, it's not, it's not too heavy. But the aroma is definitely more funky. It has a cherry note and there's also umami there. There's a savoriness along with that. There's a depth of flavor here.

and there's, Hmm. It's weird. You gonna sip on it and have it be light and tasty and done, but if you want, if you linger on it, you're gonna get all that depth, you're gonna be treated, you're gonna be, have a little bonus.

Yeah. Really interesting, unique sake.

mm-hmm.

But this is a popular sake in Japan. And right now I read online that for Mukai Shuzo, this production of this one sake, this red rice sake makes up half of her production.

Oh.

half of what she makes is this sake. So this is a huge part of their brand identity now, and I think a lot of people might view this as a standard bearer for these types of rose sakes made from red rice. Like she's figured out the way to get that color and create a really unique depth of flavor.

I understand that, and this is definitely a unique. Sake. And I, I don't mean that in a diminutive kind of way. I, I mean that as a, a compliment it's so interesting and it is so, unexpected, especially after the aroma. I hate to, I keep parking on that aroma, but you know, when I smell cheese, I get nervous. It is this weird combination of being like, it is light, much lighter than you expected to be. it has depth, much more depth than you, than you think when you taste how light it is.

Hmm. Yeah, I mean this, this would be an interesting sake to use as a cocktail base for sure. That's a great

I think if you put a little bit of seltzer in this, you're gonna blow somebody's mind. Honestly just a, a little as a splash of seltzer with this. You got a little bit of bubbles.

and a squeeze of lime.

I'm gonna try this later. I'm gonna see if it works. We've got seltzer in the house. Uh, yeah, we're gonna see if this is, uh, if my, theory holds up.

I have read that the exact method that they use for extracting and preserving the color is a guarded secret. So yeah, so we don't know. We don't know exactly how they extract the tannins and how they work with the rice. we do know that it's polished down to 92% remaining. So they're just removing the very, very outside of the Hull. And that maximizes the amount of tannins that are going to be left in that rice. And they probably need that.

Nice. What are we thinking for pairing with this sake? This is a weird sake. This is a very unusual, funky, fun sake. What do you think? Here? I'm gonna take notes.

Okay, well my feeling is that if you had like a black cherry or dark cherry dessert, like a, a tort with cherries in it. That would be great. With this, I'm leaning, like my inclination is a little bit towards dessert because I'm getting such like cherry pomegranate notes on this, a little bit more of those tart, tart flavors. I think that a dessert with sweetness, but touching upon those flavor notes would be really, really great. I would also pair this with cheese.

so, so not like a hard cheese, but like a funky cheese. You're having like some blue cheese with this. Like what are you thinking

Yeah, I think, I think blue cheese would be great. I also, I think hard cheeses would also be good, like gouda or something like that. This type of sweeter but rich. I enjoy cheeses and if you had a little dark cherry chutney on the side and you dabbled that on a cheese and ate it, I think that would be amazing. And this is similar to that, where you take something sweet and pair that with a salty lactic cheese and you get that flavor combination that's so good.

Hmm. Fascinating. All right.

You taking notes,

I, I, I am typing very quietly. Very nice. Apart from the cheese, I'm, uh, I'm excited to, uh, to see what I can do with this. I'm, you know, more the dessert. I think I was gonna see the avenue I take with, this'll be pairing it with a dessert. I do think that, uh, with the sweetness in the high acidity, you can really, you can get some, nice dessert out of this.

Yeah. And your idea to do the cocktail genius like that is amazing.

That's happening.

That has all the body and structure you need for a cocktail base. One of the shortcomings of sake and cocktails is that it tends to be a little quiet and fall in the background, but this puppy is going to give you color, it's going to give you body, it's going give you sweetness. So this is a, this is a sake that I think would be a real star of the show when it comes to cocktails. So that was a really inspired idea.

Oh wow. I thank you, Tim. I appreciate that. Maybe that should have been my resolution. I'll become a cocktail guy.

cocktails. You, you, you have time to change your

No, no, no. We're sticking through the pairing.

All right.

So, Tim, this has been, uh, quite an educational start for the year. I'm excited. this has been a lot of fun. Is it, I hope this is the sign of things to come for the new year. Big fun, interesting episodes. Yeah, it's a good time.

Yeah, and we'll have to commit to doing a few more rice episodes in the new year. I really like revisiting this topic and uh, yeah, it was great to taste with you, really fun sake to explore something unique. And I want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in. And a special. Hello and thank you to all of our patrons. We are a listener supported show, and if you would like to support Sake revolution, one of the best ways to help us out is to join our Patreon.

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